Readings in Modernity in Africa

A student guide to the variety of scholarly work on the issue of modernity in Africa.

This book provides students of Africa with a guide to the bewildering variety of scholarly work on the issue of modernity in Africa, and to offer some tools for dealing with its intellectual paradoxes. Part One contains both analytical and historical examples of the genealogies of modernity in the African continent and the fragmentation over time of its unilinear meta-narrative. Part Two provides a set of rich ethnographic sketches of its current manifestations in politics, urban space, technology and the realm of the invisible. What emerges as critically important in this challenging collage of texts, are the varying ways in which modernity actually produces its other - thatis, 'tradition'.

Contributions include writings and extracts from: JAMES G. FERGUSON, S.N. EISENSTADT, JOHN MENSAH SARBAH, J-P. OLIVIER DE SARDAN, MARGARET NIGER-THOMAS, JULIUS NYERERE, THABO MBEKI, LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR, BARBARA OOMEN, PETER PELS, BIRGIT MEYER, JEAN-FRANCOIS BAYART, KWAME NKRUMAH, ACHILLE MBEMBE, MARIAN FERME, BRIAN LARKIN, FRANCIS NYAMNJOH, ALLEN F. ROBERTS & MARY NOOTER ROBERTS, BASILE NDIJO.

Published in association with the International African Institute
North America: Indiana University Press; South Africa: Unisa Press